Fool to Think & Gotta Have You
by CitronPresse
Summary: Two pre-series stories written for the prompt "Credit Card." Pairing: Mark/Addison.
1. Fool to Think

AN: thanks for DeniseSB for beta-ing. Reviews would be appreciated.

* * *

Set in Mark, Addison and Derek's intern year. Mark's POV.

_Look at me dreaming of you__  
All I could hope is to have you  
__To have you walking with me  
Laughing so in love, we two  
Almost drunkenly I did imbibe of this  
Fantasy of you and me_

_**Fool to Think**_, Dave Matthews Band

* * *

"So, are we doing this or what?"

"Huh?" Her question rouses him from the contemplation he's lost in. When he realizes the situation they're in — his body is poised over hers, his now only half erect penis lingering indecisively over her while she looks at him with annoyed raised eyebrows – he fails to stifle a laugh just long enough that she gets pissed and squirms out from under him.

"Hey . . . " he says, consolingly, although he's kind of relieved as he rolls over onto his back, slides off the now unneeded condom and throws it away in the nearby trash can.

"Damn it, Mark!" she sighs. "I could _so_ have been screwing that other guy right now." She wrinkles her brow, trying to recollect. "You know, what's-his-face . . . David . . ." she looks at him for confirmation, then tries again, "Danny, maybe? You know. . .the one that wants to go into pediatrics."

"You realize you're a slut, right Beth?" He pushes her arm gently to emphasize that he's teasing her.

"Oh, and you're _not_?" she asks.

He likes her. They're friends . . . with benefits. They tried dating a few times in med school, but it didn't work out. But the sex is good, dependably dirty and satisfying and, if there's nothing better, she's fun to hang out with. And now that they're interns in the same hospital, it's sometimes easier to spend the night together than to look for somebody else.

"Sorry," he says. He's not in the least concerned about his lack of performance. If he'd wanted to do her he easily could have. He's just not into it tonight. He's preoccupied. "Sorry I got in the way of your carnal knowledge of what's-his-face." He grins at her and she rolls her eyes at him.

"Whatever," she says, getting up off the bed. "Shit happens." She shrugs and retrieves her clothes from the nearby armchair and, when he indicates to her that he'd like his, throws over his boxers, jeans and over-washed Columbia sweatshirt. He stands up to put on his clothes before sitting back down on the bed. "There'll be other nights, right?" she says. "Or days . . . in the on-call room! Isn't that what the attendings do when they're supposed to be teaching us?"

They both laugh. But the same thought keeps nagging at him and he decides to call on the friendship part of this arrangement and seek her advice.

"You ever been in love, Beth?" he asks softly.

Her eyes widen. "Excuse me?" she asks incredulously. She's on the point of making a joke, but she stops short when he looks at her with a sincerity she's only seen him come close to when the Yankees are being slaughtered by the Mets.

She can't hide her surprise, though. "You in love, hotshot?" she asks.

He pauses for quite a long time before he says, almost inaudibly, "Yeah," and then looks down at his lap, before adding, "I think I have to tell her . . . I have to tell her now or . . ." Or what, he doesn't know. There's just this sense of foreboding; a sense that if he doesn't tell her; doesn't tell his best friend's girlfriend, now, that he's so in love with her it's killing him, nothing will ever be right again.

He stands up, sighing. He's tired and slightly drunk and scared about what he's about to do. "You have any cash?" he asks her. "I used up all mine tonight and I need money for a cab."

She opens her arms wide and shrugs disconsolately. "Nada," she says. "No cash; no nothing. Maxed out my credit card." She smiles mischievously. "I'm waiting for my dad to replenish the supplies on Thursday when we have lunch."

He nods. He kind of envies her easy exploitation of her father. He no longer has anything to do with his family. It was his choice. But sometimes he wonders what it would be like to have parents you actually wanted to have lunch with, or see at all. Right now, though, that's not what's on his mind.

"'S okay," he says. "I'll stop by the ATM." He finds his socks and sneakers, puts them on and then picks up his jacket, bending down to give her a quick, distracted kiss as he makes his way out. "If I see what's-his-face, I'll send him over," he says, by way of apology.

* * *

Now he's standing by the ATM completely at a loss and beyond the urge of taking out his frustration on the machine. Not only will it not give him any money, the goddamn thing swallowed his credit card. Fuck! He hates being an intern. For just one second, although he doesn't really mean it, he wishes he hadn't refused the trust fund and other financial shit his family tried to bribe him with. And he hates himself right now for spending what money he has on girls who don't matter to him. He just realized that he's met the love of his life — yeah, the woman who's been dating his best friend for the past year, but he can't think about that now. He has to tell her he loves her. He knows it's a fucked up thing to do to Derek, but he's never felt this way before and he probably never will again and it's just too important to let go of without trying.

He breaks into a run. It's really too far to her apartment, but he's pretty fit and it's doable . . . just. And as he runs—trying to regulate his breath, which is hard because he's thinking about her; trying to regulate his pace, like the track coach always told them, to let the rhythm carry him forward—he sees her face and her hair. He loves her hair and its silky flowing redness that he would love to run his hands through, and he thinks that maybe being able to touch her hair and know that she was his might be the one thing he could do with a woman that would be better than sex.

And he's made it. He's reached the sidewalk outside her apartment. He bends forward, his hands resting against his thighs as he fights to regain his breath in ragged gulps.

"Mark?" It's her! He stands up and looks in the direction of her voice, unable to believe his luck and ready to tell her why he's here. Except the next voice he hears is Derek's. They're sitting together on the front stoop.

"I'm going to ignore the fact that you look like you just ran here and that that makes you insane," Derek says, "because Addie and I have some amazing news." He looks at her and puts his arm around her and she snuggles in close to him and smiles broadly.

Derek shrugs and smiles happily at Mark. "I acted on impulse," he says. "I proposed and Addie said yes and we're going to get married!" He plants a kiss on Addison's cheek and she makes a soft delighted noise in response. "You couldn't have come at a better time, man. It's great that we can share this with you!"

Mark nods and but doesn't say anything. There's nothing to say.

Addison smiles cutely at him and he can't help but smile back at her. "So . . . if Derek's your brother," she says, "I guess that makes me your future sister-in-law."

He nods again. "I guess," he mutters, trying to sound happy instead of devastated, but not quite managing.

"You okay?" Derek asks him.

He finally finds his voice. "Shouldn't have run here," he says hoarsely. "Dumb idea." He shrugs. "The girl I was with bailed at the last minute and I needed an outlet."

He swallows and just about pulls himself together and says, "Congratulations, guys." He walks over to the stoop, briefly pounds Derek on the back and then kisses Addison's cheek. There's a breeze and it blows a stray lock of her hair against his face and, for one moment, he's afraid he's going to freeze and give something away. But he doesn't. He smiles at her and steps back a few feet and everything's fine, as long as he doesn't think about what's just happened, or about her, or anything really. He'll be okay as long as he doesn't think.

"Why are you here, anyway?" Derek asks.

Mark shrugs, trying to buy time to come up with a decent excuse. Because this changes everything; and telling Addison now that she may be the only woman he's ever going to love would truly be a fucked-up and heartless thing to do to the guy he considers his only real family.

"The ATM ate my credit card," he says. "There was another girl that looked like she might be interested, but I need money to buy her a drink . . . you know . . . and I thought Addison might . . ." His voice trails off a little at the end because he can't really be bothered to put any energy into his not very convincing lie. He shrugs again. "I guess I'll just hang with you guys, though." He sighs and he can't help looking one last time into Addison's eyes when he says the words that are meaningful only to him. "It's too late now."


	2. Gotta Have You

Set in the last year of Addison and Derek's marriage. Addison's POV.

_No amount of coffee, no amount of crying_  
_No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine  
No, nothing else will do  
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you._

_**Gotta Have You**_, The Weepies

* * *

The light is warm in the little Italian restaurant. It throws a gentle glow over his face and softens his features, ironing out the slightly predatory smirk, until all she can see is the kindness that he routinely shows her. She's his best friend's wife; her husband is 'stuck' in a surgery yet again; and he's gotten stuck with entertaining her. He does it with a very good grace; he manages to make it seem as though he really wants to be here with her, although she's pretty certain that he doesn't. He looks after her out of loyalty to Derek. And, she supposes, because they've known each other a long time and they're sort of friends. But from everything she knows about him, she'd bet the 850-dollar Manolo Blahnik strappy black sandals she's wearing that he'd rather be sitting across from a woman who isn't close to maudlin tipsiness, who doesn't have suppressed tears in her eyes, and who he could be reasonably . . . no, it's Mark, and he has no self-doubt where women and sex are concerned . . . _absolutely_ certain he'll be screwing later on.

When did she get this pathetic? She's Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery . . . Shepherd. She falters on the last name. She's a double board certified surgeon. She's world-renowned . . . _world-renowned_ for God's sake . . . in neonatal surgery and genetics. And mirrors tell her that she's beautiful, but her heart doesn't believe it anymore. Because Derek just looks through her—whatever designer finery she wears; however sexy she is, although his indifference has made her shy in recent months; however many babies she saves, and articles she publishes, and keynote speeches at medical conferences she gives. She feels like some sad, disempowered mouse of a woman desperately waiting for a crumb of her husband's affection.

"Damn it!" she says under her breath, and savagely rips up the untouched ciabatta roll that's innocently sitting on her side plate.

"Everything all right, Add?" Mark asks, amusement and concern mingling in his voice. "What did that bread roll ever do to you?"

She looks up, and now he _is_ smirking at her a little. But it's a nice smirk, not predatory, and his eyes are looking into hers as though he actually cares about her. She used to get that from Derek; she doesn't very often any more, and it unhinges her enough to blurt out, "Do you think I'm beautiful, Mark?"

She's immediately embarrassed and she hopes that he'll just tease her, because that's what she's come to expect from him. But, instead, his smirk disappears while the look in his eyes deepens, and she's surprised to see him blush.

"Yes," he says, very simply, very quietly, before looking away from her, picking up his almost full wine glass, and draining it.

"Really?" she asks. It's nice that someone thinks she's beautiful; an attractive, eligible man . . . her husband's best friend and a compulsive womanizer, true . . . but still.

"Don't, Add," he says. His voice is still quiet.

She feels somehow brushed off, rejected . . . once again. But she knows this is irrational and that she's not being fair to him, and so she accepts it and takes a sip of wine to calm herself and pull herself together.

But she can't stop herself, and, as she sets down her glass, she asks him, "Why doesn't Derek love me anymore?" Derek confides in him, much more than he does in her, and if anyone apart from Derek knows the answer to this question, it's Mark.

He pauses for what seems like an eternity before he says, "He does love you, Addie. He's just busy."

She wants to ask why Derek is always so damn busy. Mark's supposedly the best plastic surgeon on the East coast, and she's _her_. Why aren't _they_ so incessantly busy that they don't ever have time for dinner and hardly ever sleep unless it's in a hospital on-call room? It doesn't make sense. But she refuses to turn into a shrill, weeping mess all over Derek's friend. The fact that he's there for her doesn't mean she has to exploit and embarrass him. She has dignity; she's _not_ a stereotype and she's not a damn doormat and she's not going to act like one.

"Why don't we order some coffee?" she asks him and waits while he attracts the attention of the waiter and orders two double espressos.

As she drinks the hot, dark liquid, she sighs and says, very quietly, almost to herself, "Derek and I were so . . . magical together once." And the moment these words are out of her mouth, she's shocked that she's not quite sure whether it's Derek she misses as much as the magic that suffused their relationship.

Mark doesn't reply, but when she looks up he's looking at her again, and even when her slightly blurry eyes meet his, his gaze doesn't waver. And, on God knows what impulse, she stands up, leans across the small table, and tries to kiss him, tries to part his lips with her tongue, because for one moment . . . a hiatus in reason and common sense . . . he's all she wants in the world.

"Don't, Add," he says gently, without judgment and pushes her away—although the pushing away feels more like being pulled towards him because it's so soft and caressing and she can feel his breath warm on her neck as he adds, "I can't."

"I'm sorry," she says, flustered because reason has come flooding back into her mind. She sits down. "Mark, I'm . . . I . . . I'm sorry. I shouldn't have . . . I shouldn't be putting you in this position."

"It's fine. Forget about it," he says, almost irritably and she recoils a little at his tone. He sighs deeply. "Let's get the check, huh?"

"That's a good idea," she says, falsely bright and organized and she rummages in her purse, pulls out her wallet and selects a platinum credit card. "My treat," she says, adding, when he objects politely, "you've had to put up with enough from me this evening."

He shakes his head, shrugs and smiles, "Whatever you say, ma'am," he jokes in a gruffly gentle voice.

"Quite right," she agrees and gives a small smile, grateful that he's . . . rather sweetly, she thinks . . . helping her to retrieve her poise.

Their coffee finished and the check taken care of, they're standing outside the restaurant. A cab drives down the street and he hails it and, when it stops, opens the door for her and gives the driver the address of her brownstone.

Before he closes the door, he leans down and looks into her eyes. He hesitates, and his gaze momentarily flickers away from hers before the intensity increases and she's transfixed by the slate blue of his eyes boring into hers.

"Just so you know," he says in a low voice that's husky with an emotion she doesn't think she's ever heard from him before, "when I said 'I can't'—"

She opens her mouth to speak, and he breaks off, shakes his head very slightly, and puts one finger against her lips to quiet her.

"I can't because I love you, and if I started something with you I wouldn't be able to stop." He looks away from her and then adds, "I just wanted you to know that," before he slams the cab door shut and lets the driver know he can go.

Addison can't look back at him as the cab drives away, although part of her desperately wants to. Part of her desperately wants to stop the cab and get out and run into his arms. With him, just now . . . _that_ was magic. And the only reason she lets the cab drive on is that she knows if she started something with him, she wouldn't be able to stop either.


End file.
